Tom Brady and Rex Ryan press conference quotes

Here are some of the leftover highlights from the Tom Brady and Rex Ryan press conferences from Tuesday.

∎ Brady

Q: Despite your dominance over the Jets recently, is it something special to play the Jets?

TB: Yeah it is, and it’s awesome. I mean, it’s Boston-New York. It’s been that way for a long time, long before me, and any time you see them on the schedule you just think of all the great games that you’ve had against them and you think of how challenging the game will be. We know a lot of the faces, we know the scheme. There are some new faces that are part of the rivalry, so it’s going to be an exciting game on Thursday night here. I know the stadium, it’s our first home opener, which is always fun for us players, so hopefully we can go out and play really well.

Q: When you see Stevan Ridley going through what he went through on Sunday, do you have any sort of interaction with him? Do you need to go to him and say, ‘Look, we have confidence in you, you’re our guy,’ or is that the kind of thing that since he’s been here for a couple years now you just kind of leave him alone?

TB: We’re all pretty positive with one another. I mean, we never like to see each other make mistakes, but they happen. We fumbled the snap on the goal line, I threw an interception. You’ve got to be able to bounce back from those things. Football’s not necessarily a game of perfect, it’s just you try to limit what your bad plays are so they’re just not really bad plays or really critical plays in the game. I think the mental toughness from all of us to try to bounce back, I know Stevan is a very mentally tough kid, and I love having him back there. I love giving the ball to him, watching him run. He’s done a great job with that since he’s got here.

Q: Are you positive during the game or is that after the game that you kind of talk to one another? Because it seems like you just have to kind of move on because the game is going on.

TB: Yeah, both. I think both. Hopefully you’re always pretty positive, I mean I think the mental mistakes are things that you always get frustrated with because those are really things that are totally in your control. The physical mistakes are football. Yeah, you don’t want them to happen, but they’re going to happen. You’re not going to make every jump shot, you know? It’s just the way it is. You’ve got to be in the right spot, you’ve got to be doing the right thing, you’ve got to be doing it with the right amount of effort. You’ve got to be playing smart, you’ve got to be playing disciplined, and then try to limit your physical mistakes. That’s really what it comes down to. It’s no use just screaming at someone and saying, ‘Well, you have to, you know…’ They know, we know what we have to do. It’s just, we have to do a better job of it.

∎ Ryan

Q: What did you see from the Bills game in terms of the struggles that Brady had adjusting to his new targets?

RR: Well I don’t know that I would classify Tom Brady struggling. I’d have to see that to believe it. I don’t think he has ever struggled. So, to me, what I saw was a team that could really run the football, and I think in the past they have run the ball, but not with the conviction that I saw in the first week against a pretty darn good front. That’s something that obviously looks like New England is going to run the ball more than they’ve done in the past. I saw where two receivers, (regarding) your comments that it was a bad game (for receivers), I saw two receivers had over 100 yards. So, (laughing) Oh my goodness. But again, you’ve got a couple of Wes Welker clones over there in (Julian) Edelman and (Danny) Amendola. It’s difficult, no question.

Q: How important was it to get some positive momentum with the win Sunday after the type of offseason the team experienced?

RR: Well we have way more positive momentum than people give us credit for. We were 3-1 in the preseason. I think that’s good. You know, it beats the alternative. Inside our building, it’s been nothing but positive. We’ve had probably as good of an offseason as anybody in the league when it comes to our players coming in for voluntary work, the type of work they are doing, our minicamps and then training camp. We had great competition at several positions, and we have a close football team. So I think this is…I don’t know what the general, I mean I think I know what the general consensus is out there, but it’s not even close. We’ve had nothing but positive vibes through our locker room.

∎ And this doesn’t really deserve to be labeled a highlight, but it sums up the Bill Belichick press conference.